Abstract
Robert Solomon, who wrote the first comprehensive, well-known study of emotions during recent times, maintains that a central feature of emotions is that they are ‘self-involved’.1 He also says that in many emotions the judgment of the self is implicit or in the shadows, implying that the self casts a shadow on emotions like admiration, anger and envy. ‘Anger, which always involves a judgment that one’s self has been offended or violated, may nonetheless focus its fervor strictly towards the other person. Resentment, although clearly self-involved and based upon a personal stance of defensiveness, protects its self with a projected armour of objectivity’.2 He says that in every case the self is an essential pole of emotional judgment. Solomon even seems to suggest that the nature of emotions will remain incomprehensible without a theory of the self.3 But ultimately, the self in emotions is a point of reference implying subjectivity. Even today, in examining the problematic relationship between emotions and the self, there is a kind of unwillingness to probe deeply into the question of the reality of the self, as well as the moral criticism of the emotions.
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Notes
Robert C. Solomon, 1977, The Passions, Doubleday, Anchor, New York.
Leila Tov-Ruach, 1987, ‘Jealousy, Attention and Loss’, in Rorty, Amelie, ed., Explaining Emotions, University of California Press, Berkeley, p. 477.
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Jack Engler, 2006, ‘Promises and Perils of the Spiritual Path’, in Mark Unno, ed., Buddhism and Psychotherapy Across Cultures, Wisdom Publishers, Boston, MA.
Mark Epstein, 2007, Psychotherapy Without the Self: A Buddhist Perspective, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, p. 15.
J. Rubin, 1996, Psychoanalytic and Buddhist Conceptions of the Self Plenum Press, New York, p. 66.
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© 2014 Padmasiri de Silva
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de Silva, P. (2014). Pride and Conceit: Emotions of Self-Assessment. In: An Introduction to Buddhist Psychology and Counselling. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137287557_20
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137287557_20
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